English

ENGLISH 9 H  (310)

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 9

The ninth grade program explores the individual’s quest for identity, echoing the issues that students themselves confront when they enter high school.  Students concentrate on key topics throughout the year: defining maturity, examining heroic quests, meditating on the attainment of personal happiness, and probing the role of family and friends.  In order to explore these topics, students learn a variety of language skills that enable them to interact with a variety of authors and audiences, generating critical essays, research projects, short stories, and personal essays.  Texts may include: Homer’s The Odyssey, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, as well as selections of short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Additionally, grammar and vocabulary are taught throughout the year. 

The Regents Level course mirrors the Honors Level course and includes modification to increase students’ comprehension and skill mastery.  To this end, students may be provided with alternate texts, homework, vocabulary lists, and assessments.

ENGLISH 10H  (320)

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 10

Tenth grade English broadly focuses on issues related to the formation of societies.  Students investigate the following topics: the moral nature of human beings, the possibility of heroism, utopias and dystopias, and the relationship between language and power.  Students develop their ability to articulate arguments through reading, writing about and discussing a number of literary works chosen to encourage critical and interdisciplinary thinking, as well as create original works in a wide variety of genres. In addition, they develop their language skills individually and in groups through performances, presentations, and research projects. The textbook is Advanced Language and Literature: For Honors and Pre-AP English Courses. It will be supplemented by other texts, which may include: Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One, Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption, George Orwell’s 1984, Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth as well as a selection of short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Additionally, grammar and vocabulary are taught throughout the year. 

The Regents Level course mirrors the Honors Level course and includes modification to increase students’ comprehension and skill mastery.  To this end, students may be provided with alternate texts and modified standards or assessments.

ENGLISH 11 H  (330)  

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 11

What does it mean to be an American and how does it influence our values as individuals and a society? Over the course of our year together, we will explore the way authors, artists, filmmakers, and the media utilize language and images in order to present a certain view of our nation. We will work through the American Literary Movements mostly chronologically. Texts might include: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, August Wilson’s Fences, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Explorer’s Journals, Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”, Ernest Hemingway’s  “Cat in the Rain”, Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Lullaby” as well as thematically linked book club choices.

We also will study Transcendentalism and early American literature, short stories, poetry, memoirs, and films to better understand ourselves in relation to the world. Instruction in vocabulary, grammar, and usage continues at this level with emphasis on more complex and so­phisticated activi­ties. Students will take the NYS ELA Regents Exam in January.

The Regents Level course mirrors the Honors Level course and includes modification to increase students’ comprehension and skill mastery.  To this end, students may be provided with alternate texts, homework, and assessments.

ENGLISH 12 H  (340)

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 12

This course prepares seniors to transition to the world beyond high school by examining the following question:  how does knowledge of self reward and challenge an individual?   We will read, write about, create, and discuss a variety of works that investigate the individual’s responsibility to the larger society, including: Jon Krakauer’s  Into the Wild,  Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, film version of Hamlet,  Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis,  Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin’s Banaju’s The Blindspot, Tennessee Williams’s  A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as a selection of short stories and creative nonfiction and poetry.   We will also rely on excerpts from Samuel Cohen’s 50 Essays.  Our course will also immerse us in Seminar Style discussion, original research, and public speaking and debate skills.   Special emphasis is placed upon helping writers to achieve their voice via deliberate sentence styles. Second semester, students will study documentaries, lead lessons about short stories, conduct research, coach each other through creative writing, and actively debate real world topics.

SPEECH AND DEBATE_______________________________________________816       

One Semester Only   Open to all Grades

.5 Credits

This course provides students with the ability to recognize and utilize rhetorical strategies to write and speak persuasively.  Students learn techniques to use in their own speeches and essays by analyzing master speeches, ranging from declarations of war to inaugural addresses. They also form debate teams to research and defend their views effectively.  

Because some of their speeches are recorded digitally, students learn to critique themselves and each other.  For the final exam, each student delivers a twenty minute speech which showcases his/ her skills to parent volunteers.

AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE – Grade 11       ______________________________  335

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 11

Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

- Sir Francis Bacon

Throughout AP English Language and Composition we will work toward becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers as well as flexible, reflective writers. This advanced level course is designed to not only satisfy the requirements of a college-level composition class, but also to give students the means, in Mr. Bacon’s words, to successfully “contend” throughout college and life. Students are expected to sit for the AP English Language and Composition exam in May. AP Lang is primarily concerned with how language functions rhetorically, i.e. how an author communicates a particular intention and elicits readers’ responses in a given situation. Over the course of the year we will explore the art and science of rhetoric, the interrelatedness of author, text and audience, and above all, the power of language. We will engage with a substantial amount of nonfiction (essays, speeches, letters, editorials, books, politics, satire, science, treatises, declarations, critiques, arguments) as well as multimodal “texts” (advertisements, graphics, documentary films, op-docs, art). We will not, of course, ignore imaginative literature, though our examination of it will necessarily extend from theme and character to rhetoric, style, and argumentation. Readings will include: Miller’s The Crucible, Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Capote’s In Cold Blood. Other selections will be drawn from Scanlon’s Language of Composition and contemporary media. Frequent writing will also range broadly to incorporate a variety of modes (argument, analysis, exposition, narration) from informal assignments (reader response journals, blogs) to timed in-class practice of the three AP Language exam essays (rhetorical analysis, synthesis, argument) to extended process pieces that will require multiple drafts and revision.

This is a college-level course as detailed by the Advanced Placement curriculum.  The texts may contain mature material. If you have any questions, reach out to your counselor for a syllabus of the course prior to registration. Summer reading is required.

 AP ENGLISH LITERATURE – Grade 12   __________________________________345

Full year, 1 credit

Grade 12

An AP English Literature and Composition course engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature from various genres and periods from the 16th to the 21st century, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit.  Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone. Issues that might, from a specific cultural viewpoint be considered controversial are often represented in works of literature. AP students should have the maturity, the skill and the will to seek the larger meaning of these representations. In addition to carefully analyzing and considering the merit and societal context of texts, students are required to develop college level compositional skills that are required to adequately analyze the complexity of our texts. A tenet of this course is to help develop the ability to think critically and creatively about all aspects of a text, and most importantly, develop an original literary argument, and unique analytical, writing and response style. 

Main texts include: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer; Hamlet, Shakespeare; Slaughterhouse-5, Vonnegut; The Stranger, Camus; “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Salinger; Frankenstein, Shelley; Beloved, Morrison; Homegoing, Gyasi; The Color Purple, Walker; The Underground Railroad, Whitehead; The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald. A variety of poetry from across literary movements will be utilized as primary and supplementary material. Additionally, supplementary texts will be drawn from thinkers as diverse as Camus, Sartre, Rushdie,. Throughout the course students can expect extensive weekly reading and writing assignments. Above all, students are expected to interact with our texts in a way that allows them to form meaningful connections to their own lives. 

This is a college-level course as detailed by the Advanced Placement curriculum.  The texts may contain mature material.  If you have any questions, reach out to your counselor for a syllabus of the course prior to registration. 

RESEARCH SEMINAR IN EDUCATIONAL EQUITY (formerly HUMANITIES RESEARCH SEMINAR)    760

Open to juniors, and seniors

Full Year, 1 credit 

Grounded in a survey approach to philosophies of education, students will spend the year examining issues of inequity across our local and national school systems. The course will compose of two major projects in order to enhance this reflective experience: a process research paper and service learning placement and project. 

Our classwork will include a look into the purpose of education and its historical influence on our current educational system. We will look at the origins of formal education through a brief introduction to Greek and modern educational philosophy before looking at the structure, policies and law that regulate current educational systems. The first semester will end with a college-level research paper. Possible topics for examination in the research paper include; book banning, curriculum and content, tracking in mathematics, history of private schools, freedom of speech in schools, .  Students are required to attend at least 2 Board of Education meetings throughout the year

During the 2nd semester, students will take part in their service learning placement, which will culminate in a service/passion project. Through this process students will be encouraged to not only challenge their traditional notions of community and service, but also how they can engage in remedying these problems within both their local community and on a larger scale. 

The course will incorporate a combination of film, text, and class discussions to foster an in-depth analysis of some of the most pressing issues around education today.  

In addition to these topics of study, the course will also develop basic research skills and allow students to play the role of both participant and facilitator of class discussions, hone presentation skills and a sense of voice amongst both the class and community, learn to read analytically with a critical eye across the field, and lastly discover a deeper sense of identity and purpose.

SERVICE LEARNING SEMINAR (formerly GLOBAL LEADERSHIP SEMINAR)                   775

Open to juniors, and seniors

Full Year, ½ credit 

This course is designed to introduce issues of equity, justice, service and identity, both within your community and the world.  The course is structured like a college seminar.  It meets once a cycle and expects you to complete work and research outside of the class.  This course will also serve as an introduction service learning. Students will be expected to participate in a community partnership (service placement) addressing issues of interest. In the first semester  students will develop a proposal for community-based work in partnership with their community organization. In the second semester, students will implement and evaluate this project. This capstone seminar represents the culmination of a student’s service experiences at Bronxville.

Our units will focus on the following: poverty, class, race, gender, immigration, education, policy, and social justice. Weekly assignments will consist of journals, reflections, and presentations on relevant topics touched on in the course.  Each week a student will be assigned to lead the seminar in a discussion of one or all of the week’s readings.  This will consist of creating a set of discussion questions, providing a short five to ten minute introduction, and facilitating an in-depth conversation amongst the class.